Virginia Farmers Jump On Broccoli Bandwagon

1992's 400-acre Harvest Quadruples Last Year's

November 03, 1992|By TINA MCCLOUD Daily Press

It's a banner year for Virginia broccoli, that healthy green veggie that kids and the president love to hate.

Through Thanksgiving, Virginia growers will harvest about 400 acres of broccoli. That's barely a floret in the field compared with the more than 100,000 acres from four states out west. But it's four times the acreage planted in Virginia just a year ago, said Charlie O'Dell, an extension horticulturist at Virginia Tech.

Health-conscious Americans jumped on the broccoli bandwagon in the 1980s to take advantage of its apparent ability to ward off cancer. From 1972 until 1987, per capita consumption more than tripled, to 5.3 pounds per elected person and ordinary folk.

No fat. No cholesterol. No taste? In 1990, Bush basically told the world that being president meant never having to say, ``Pass the broccoli.'' He said the first lady was eating his share, and their dog, Millie, also liked it.

It turns out that per capita consumption had peaked two years earlier, in 1988, at 6.2 pounds. Last year, the most recent available, each of us ate only 5.4 pounds, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The national harvest has also gone down each year since 1989, but there is no broccoli recession, said two USDA experts. The department counts broccoli harvests only from the four leading states: California, Arizona, Oregon and Texas. No one knows how much broccoli each of us is eating that was grown in Mexico or Maine, which is sprouting a healthy broccoli industry, they said.

Most of Virginia's broccoli is grown in Southside, the central part of the state along the North Carolina border. In the early 1980s, tobacco farmers in counties such as Halifax, Pittsylvania and Mecklenburg feared the domestic tobacco market was dwindling and needed an alternate crop, said O'Dell, who has researched broccoli for a decade.

However, foreign markets for tobacco grew, so producers found it profitable to stick with their main product, he said. Also, broccoli is planted in the heat of summer and needs irrigation to thrive, but producers often had to irrigate their tobacco at the same time instead, so the broccoli yield was disappointing, said O'Dell.

The crop took off in Virginia this year because someone finally got it right, said O'Dell. He credits producer Ned Henderson of Halifax with proving last year in the field what researchers had proved in demonstration plots: Broccoli would turn a good profit if it was never stressed for water. Henderson's three acres produced more than 600 boxes per acre, more than twice the state average, said O'Dell.

``He didn't do anything but do it right,'' said O'Dell. That encouraged more farmers, including some outside the Southside region, to try it this year, he said.

One of the first-year growers is Raymond S. Thomas, who with his relatives farms about 4,000 acres around Tappahannock. Thomas said he's pleased so far with his 35 acres of broccoli, which is ready for harvest this week.

Thomas said he was looking for something profitable to add to his mix of melons, tomatoes, barley, wheat and other crops.

Thomas will market his broccoli crop through the Southside Virginia Produce Cooperative in Halifax, about 150 miles from the farm. He will ship boxes there by refrigerated truck, but even with transportation costs it looks to be a good deal, he said.

Freshness is one advantage to East Coast consumers that Virginia broccoli offers, said Earl Chipman, the cooperative's general manager. The broccoli can be in grocery stores and restaurants when it's only 24 to 48 hours out of the field. ``That's a week fresher than what's coming from California,'' he said.

Most of the co-op's customers are in Roanoke, Abingdon and Washington, D.C., said Chipman. The co-op isn't actively marketing the product in southeast Virginia yet because it can barely keep up with the demand from customers it already has, he said.

Broccoli is the biggest income producer for the cooperative, which is owned by 130 members in Virginia and North Carolina, he said. Chipman said he expects the co-op to market 60,000 to 80,000 boxes of broccoli this season, or from 1.4 million to 1.9 million pounds. The crop will bring in sales of $500,000 to $750,000, he estimated.

In a Gloucester grocery store Friday, a bunch with two or three stalks was 99 cents and weighed between 1 and 1 1/4 pounds. A package of frozen broccoli pieces from Mexico was $1.19 for 1 1/4 pounds.

``If you watch the specials like I do, it's a fantastic bargain,'' said Ann A. Hertzler, an extension specialist in foods and nutrition at Virginia Tech. A serving of the frozen broccoli pieces provides 40 percent of the recommended daily allowance for vitamin A and 90 percent of vitamin C, at only 25 calories.

But first you have to eat it. Hertzler said broccoli has gotten a bum rap. Kids, left to their own devices, enjoy broccoli, she said. It's seeing their elders, and their president, turn up their noses that turns them off, she said.